Female 4 octave range? — Page 5

Four octaves?!??!?! Woah... I'm lucky to hit an octave and a half of notes...

I think you mean the Ab below the C below middle C. If it were the Ab directly below middle C to the Bb two octaves and a major second higher, you would be very much a mezzo-soprano.

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I must say that I find the octave claims in this thread to be fairly ludicrous. As someone who worked in professional musical theater for many, many years, these octaves are astonishing. I expect that you will all be bright lights on the Broadway, Hollywood or Recording scene in the very near future. What I've found is that most people claim a range when they can sing one note in that octave. If you can sing 3 Cs, legitimately (not falsetto), then you have a 2 octave range, not three. I've been alive in 6 decades, but I am NOT 60 years old. It's the same thing.

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I'm in partial agreement with you, but I have to say that I have noticed in the past decade or so a great advancement in vocal standards, with the advent of the powerhouse pop divas such as Whitney, Mariah, etc...young people are much more aware of what the human voice is capable of in both range and power and start, at an early age, to try to imitate what they've grown up hearing. I really do think that finding people with a consistently usable three-to-four octave range is a much more common occurrence now than it was, say in the 60's or 70's. (Although, even then, you had Yma Sumac and Minnie Riperton to point the way to stratospheric glory...how many of you over the age of 40 *haven't* tried to sing "Lovin' You"? :-P)

But, you're right...the side effect of this sudden awareness of extreme vocal range is now anybody who has ever dropped a hammer on their toe and screamed thinks "Oooh, I just hit a high G. I have a four octave range. Wow!" Also, (and this is NOT an attack on singers, I swear), vocalists(musical theatre singers particularly), it seems to me have a slightly less comprehensive understanding of music theory than instrumentalists, and are often easily confused as to what exactly constitutes an octave, re: your three C's=two octaves comment. (Which I'm glad someone finally made!)

Anyway...the only reason I resurrected this thread was because I found that website and there are some GREAT clips on there of people who really *do* have fantastic, *usable* extended ranges in both directions, and I just thought people might enjoy hearing them. That's all...I didn't mean to start the "I have a 6 octave range" "No you don't" "yes I do" thing all over again. My apologies!

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Updated On: 3/1/05 at 10:26 AM

I'm saving that for the dinner party, kitten. :) Long time no see! What's up?

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